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..if you were the last team in the series.  in general your quest just got cut off.  Would you class this as winning or losing?  I know at least one team were classed as winning as they got their prize but other quests just stopped.

Also they advertised for new contestants after the 8th series.  Hmm  if it were as popular as i thought it was they should have had plenty of replies and continued with the program.

Just a few observations after a couple of lemmonades

i agree it would be dissapointing to get onto Knightmare, a feat in itself, and then have your quest cut short for the end of Series. They are however classed as a loosing quest...

The only team that got their prize was Team 4 (Series 3), because they got the furthest in the Series. Im a bit puzzled though why they awarded the prize then, when a lot of quests were yet to come, unless they called the team back to record the award giving and then edited it in...

They advertised for new contestants after the 8th series
just incase a new one was made. It was really just a fallback because a decision hadnt been made yet, they wanted the contestants to be there if the decision was to make another series.

"You're in a small room. At the end of the room is a shiny crown, on a statue. Walk forwards..."
"Now, pick up the crown."
*BONG!*
"The bells, master! It's the end of the series!"
"I'm sorry team, we must recall Brian. Spellcasting..."

They could at least wait for the team to finish, do another episode maybe - congratulations team! Youve won heres your...
Bong!
Oh never mind, end of series

If it were that close to the wire, I'm sure they'd just do a bit of editing so that they could fit it all in.

Yeah, I always thought that was harsh, they should wait until the team finished, or if they really didn't have enough time, they should not start a new quest.  One of my only gripes with Knightmare, that  ;)

I know I have mentioned this before, but since this has come up again, I thought I might as well add it to the discussion:

Both Knightmare and Who wants to be a Millionaire have contestants/teams that could go on for any length of time, yet in Knightmare, a quest could just end in the middle of the series, whereas in Who wants to be a Millionaire, all the series just 'happened' to end when a contestant finished 'naturally'. I assume that they must edit out pauses - I have heard about one contestant in Millionaire thinking for an hour and a half, which got cut short. If they could do it in Millionaire, why could they not do it in Knightmare? I mean, there must be some moments of thinking that could be edited. For example, Richard Howse, (the dungeoneer of series 8, team 1)mentioned that they took about half an hour in the clue room. Some more of this could have been left in instead of sending Oliver's team in when the crew knew full well that there was no way it could have been completed, or alternatively, an 'irrelevant' room could be added in to Dunstan's quest - i.e. had no bearing on the overall quest but was just to fill up time - I emailed Barry from series 7 and he told me that the Trial by Spikes was added in afterwards because they were running short on time (Would they have ditched everything that was shown after that room if they had died? Or would they have just 'covered up' the death, like what was often seen in early series when a team 'die' very early on). Also, couldn't some editing have allowed Giles's team from series 4 to finish? Everybody says that they would have won if they had the time. (They seemed to be 'let off' in the Corridor of Blades - perhaps the crew instead gave the team 'losing' status, because otherwise there would be a few minutes that the production team could do nothing with - short of sending in a team that they know full-well will not get anywhere near to finishing naturally).

With all this above, just consider series 1-4 and ignore series which contain an 'end of season plotline' (just to make it a bit simpler).

I have just seen Giles's quest and it appears that he was let off. The tips of the blade would normally kill or seriously damage lifeforce. I agree that they probably weren't killed off as the production crew had nothing they could do in five minutes- great quest though! The way he ran around the block and tackle like a runaway bull was very entertaining. I wonder what he would have done with that 'tiny' spell.
Back to the matter in hand, I do think that there were definitely occasions where things could have been edited for extra time. That series 8 could have easily been extended if there was editing to all that decision making in the clueroom as Joe pointed out. However, knightmare episodes were only 23-25 minute length so they were always limited- maybe 30 minute or 45 minute episodes would have been better!  

[quote]I have just seen Giles's quest and it appears that he was let off. The tips of the blade would normally kill or seriously damage lifeforce. I agree that they probably weren't killed off as the production crew had nothing they could do in five minutes.

I dont think I agree on that one.  Its very hard too see what was a hit and what wasen in KM, and besides we have seen much dodgier stuff than this.  As for using quest time I dont think that was a consideration, I do remember one team who ran out of series time near the start ( I think ).  They were given some kind of quest to return a staff? to the castle, which was used to end the series.

I think Giles team was VVVVV unlucky.

[quote]

I assume that they must edit out pauses - I have heard about one contestant in Millionaire thinking for an hour and a half, which got cut short. If they could do it in Millionaire, why could they not do it in Knightmare?

Hour and a half?  Was that Major Ingram?

It is true Millionaire is edited otherwise people would be stuck on £500 for half a show boring everybody.  KM must have edited out pauses for the same reason.  Then again there is the "send something nasty after them in an attempt to speed things up" factor.

I feel sorry for the people who start a quest and don't get to finish it.  They really should have extended the final episode of a series and have a resolution to the quest - death or glory.

And that blade just glanced Giles.

Yes, pauses definitely do get edited out! For example, we had a scene in our adventure with Julius Scaramonger, where we were supposed to be giving him gold in enchange for aniseed. But I didn't know if I could trust him to give it to me, so every time he went to take the gold I pulled my hand back... until he said "are we doin' the 'okey cokey 'ere or what?"! They edited the scene so it looked like we decided to do the exchange, and then just did it!

[quote]

I think they would have turned Mogdread Tiny just a guess.

Whilst it's true that both Km and WWTBAM are both edited, it's far easier to make WWTBAM fit a specific time-frame because far less actually happens. About 90%+ of the time is spent by contestants sitting and thinking - which is easy to edit out. Simply choose how much and splice accordingly.

Km would be far more difficult to edit because far more happens. Therefore, there are far fewer possibilities. As a result, fitting it all into a given time-frame would be tricky. Therefore, they would be left with no choice but to interrupt the final quest because it would simply be impossible to edit everything to fit.

Perhaps it could be done, but it would take a very long time indeed - and that costs money.

How do you know all about that technical stuff? Are you a televirtual worker?

Teams were always classed as being in a winning status, until they made a mistake or picked a wrong clue object etc, to make them on a losing quest.  So Giles team who were unlucky were on a winning quest however they didn't win their quest to do that you have to complete all 3 levels.  

In series 3 teams 4 and 11 both reached the final stage and therefore were champions of that series however they didn't win the quest.  Nor what it cut short for the end of the season.  



Galgarach how on earth could they do another episode in a series when the reason why its ending is for Christmas, therefore they can't, and they couldn't exactly have rollover players from the end of one series to the start of another as its 9 months between Christmas and the start of September.  

Melisandrinoff I don't see how they could just not start a new quest either, because if there was 10 minutes of an episode left you can't just expect nothing to be on.  



Joe Grocott-James you make some good points about editing in WWTBAM and Knightmare, but I don't think that editing bits back in to knightmare to fill in time is ideal.  For example do we really want to see a team take half an hour in a clue room, no because at the end of the day the deaths didn't happen in the clue rooms, so we can't really have a whole episode of:  "Shall we take this" "No" etc, and you also have to remember that people said of Knightmare that the game was too slow, even with all the edits etc.  

To sum up the whole point of that last paragraph if you didn't get it, was that bits were edited out so we wouldn't get bored watching, and editing bits back in to fill time is not ideal.  

Giles team did not die in the corridor of blades, close yes, but it missed.  If we can't agree with it on the forum, I don't think they could have said they were killed otherwise there would be a record number of messages on the forum saying unfair death series 4 team 8.  

PunmiesterWhiteley how on earth can they just extend an episode just because its the end of the series?  

I wonder if Giles team were allowed to finish their quest anyway, even if that part didn't get shown on TV.  

In short, teams that had their quest ended as it was the last episode were unlucky but there wasn't really anyway round the situation.